


If Wishes Were

by Laylah



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Sexswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:26:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The change is just enough to make him seem new and strange again, to make her really notice how his shoulderblades slide as he moves, how his spine curves --</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were

"Drace!" Gabranth's voice, near at hand, urgent. "Are you all right?"

Drace stirs, draws in a deep breath, and feels the aches in her side, her head, her leg grow sharper. They were scouting along the border, looking to confirm reports of Rozarrian ships in the area, and --

She sits up in the wreckage of their Atomos, and winces. "I could use a potion, if you have a spare."

"Always," Gabranth says. He has taken off his helm, and she thinks that he has always been too careless of his own safety, and then he's opening a potion vial and handing it to her.

"Thank you," she says, lifting free her own helm as well. After she has taken the potion from him but before she drinks, she asks, "Where did we go down?"

"Near the border with Nabradia," Gabranth says. He hasn't forgotten everything that mattered in his concern for her, at least. "Clear of the wood, definitely back in Archadian territory, but I can't say how near we are to a settlement."

Drace nods, and swallows the potion, trying as always not to grimace at the earthy, fermented-fruit taste. The pain fades, which means it can't have been anything too serious; most likely her armor protected her from the worst of the impact.

Their pilot, she sees as she rises to her feet, was not so lucky. She climbs over the twisted wreckage carefully, tugs off one gauntlet, and feels for a pulse.

"He didn't make it," Gabranth says quietly.

"Gods rest his soul," Drace says, and turns away. She didn't know the man, but he handled the craft well, and without his cool response to the freshly-erupted blight of Jagd they likely all would have died in the crash.

"Faram," Gabranth replies.

Drace blinks. She hadn't realized, somehow, that Gabranth would be religious, or that Landis would have brought him up in traditions like Archadia's own. "When we report back, we will send a recovery team here for the ship and the body," she says. "If you will second it, I will recommend him for posthumous honors."

"If you feel it necessary," Gabranth says. He has crossed to the door of the Atomos, examining the sealing mechanism that holds them inside.

"If he had family," Drace explains, "then they could collect an increased pension award for his diligence. I would see that happen."

Gabranth nods. "Of course," he says. "When we get back to Archades, let me know what you need from me." He puts his shoulder to the door and pushes, leaning his weight on the locking-bar, and the door creaks open with a whine of protesting steel.

"I will," Drace says. It's entirely possible, she realizes, that he has never had occasion to deal with this particular procedure; he has adjusted so well to some aspects of the Magister's role that she sometimes forgets how recently he was appointed to it.

She follows him out of the wreck, helm tucked under her arm, and surveys their landing site. The Atomos skidded to a halt against a hillside, on a rocky steppe with sparse plant growth. The sky is clear, and the green haze of the Salikawood is visible to the south. A coeurl sits on its haunches on the next rise, its long whiskers swaying back and forth as it watches them.

"We won't have a rescue party looking for us, will we?" Gabranth says.

"We might," Drace says. "Tomorrow."

Gabranth appears to think that over for a few moments. "We can walk to the hunters' camp on the Phon Coast by then, can't we? We could use their gate crystal." Unspoken but quite clear is the fact that both of them would be well served by a display of competence here. Waiting for rescue would provide far too much ammunition for their opponents in the Senate.

"We'd best start now," Drace says.

"Drace," Gabranth says, stopping her as she reaches up to replace her helm. "I -- I'm glad you are all right."

She smiles, though she can't quite bring herself to meet his eyes. "I would not want to lose you, either."

It has been a long time since Drace was in a field-combat situation with such a small party, and she finds that she is enjoying the renewed challenge. Gabranth is a skilled swordsman, focused and intense, using both halves of his blade with clean efficiency. Few of the creatures in the uplands have the power to pierce their armor and pose a real threat, but that does little to dampen the creatures' aggression. There is a kind of calm to it, Drace thinks, almost a meditation, as they work their way southeast through the fields, finding targets and dispatching them. In this, along with so many other things they've shared, she and Gabranth match each other well.

The rocky soil of the uplands is giving way to the sandy expanse of the coastal plain when they encounter trouble. They've become distracted, both of them too focused on the dive-bombing attacks of a pyrolisk to keep an eye out for the telltale shimmer of magicks along the ground, and as they pursue it, trying to get in a killing blow before it can attack again, one of them steps on the trap. There's a blast of light, and Drace hears Gabranth curse -- his voice strange, constricted -- and then she staggers, even as some distant, calculating part of her brain notes in relief that there's no pain. Her sense of balance is all wrong, and her armor feels poorly fitted, but she grits her teeth and fights through it until the pyrolisk goes down.

"Are you all right?" she asks Gabranth then, and startles at the sound of her own voice. It's harsher, lower, more resonant than it should be.

"I think so," Gabranth says, and his hand flies to his throat when his voice, also, is altered -- lighter in timbre, a little higher in pitch. Not an outrageous difference, and yet -- "Perhaps I speak too soon," he says wryly.

Open, untamed field or no, he reaches to remove his helm. It's a terrible habit, Drace thinks. The line of his jaw is softer than it should be, and his cheeks bear not a trace of stubble, when she knows full well that he can't go past noon without the shadow of a beard on his face.

Drace shifts in her armor, feeling the ways that it no longer fits, the unwieldy contours of the breastplate, the way her trousers feel too loose at her hips and simultaneously too tight against her -- oh. "I don't believe I've ever encountered a trap that did this before," she says. She can see horrified understanding settling over Gabranth's face, and tamps down the irrational surge of conflicting reactions she has to that.

"Do you have any remedies?" he asks.

She hands him one. "I never learned the advanced lore for them," she says, "so you're best off trying that yourself."

Gabranth nods. "Thank you." His hands are deft even with his gauntlets, snapping open the packet and raising it to breathe in the trapped essences as they escape. Yet Drace sees no change overtake him, and he shakes his head after a moment. "Nothing," he says, "and I do have the lore."

"Which means the gate crystal won't reverse it either," Drace says. "In the Phon camp we could pass for each other, if need be, but in Archades --"

"Oh gods," Gabranth says, flinching. "I can't go back to Archades like this." Drace does her best not to react to that, but either she manages poorly or else he has begun to consider the implications of his words, even if he still does so too late. "I mean only that -- no, there is no good way to mean that, is there?"

Drace shakes her head. "I'm afraid it grows no easier to be a woman in Archades with practice," she says wryly.

Gabranth takes a few deep breaths. "Will it wear off, then?"

"Most things do," Drace says. "Do you want to try to wait it out before we go back?" With some of the others -- Bergan, perhaps, who would deserve the ridicule, or Zecht, who likely could bear it -- she might demand that they go on anyway. But Gabranth had to fight nearly as hard for his position as she did for hers, and she'd as soon not see either of them compromised.

"We can make camp against the cliff face," Gabranth suggests. "I assume Archadia teaches wilderness survival to her rank and file."

The weather's clear enough. She's been in worse places overnight on missions. And if they begin now, with the sun still well above the horizon, they should be well prepared by nightfall. "If you'll gather some wood for the fire," she says, "I'll see what I can hunt for our supper."

She catches the annoyance on Gabranth's face at being stuck with the drudgery, but he doesn't argue, only nods. Most likely he's relieved enough at her willingness to wait that it takes some of the sting out of inglorious labor.

Or perhaps, she thinks later, as she makes a third attempt to bring down a piranha cleanly, he had the right idea. She still feels unbalanced, awkward with her hips too narrow and her shoulders too broad. The _power_ in her changed body is welcome enough, or it would be if she felt like she had better control of it; as things stand she has to change her stance and her swing both, before she can make a clean kill that doesn't shred the meat of her quarry. Her armor, which fit so well two hours ago, sits awkwardly and chafes even through her leathers.

By the time she returns to their makeshift campsite with half a dozen non-mangled piranha, Drace has had enough of this entire adventure. Gabranth, she sees, has stacked some broken branches for them to use as fuel later, and started a small fire.

"How do you stand it?" he greets her. Drace finds herself irrationally admiring the way he sounds as an alto. "They're so --" He gestures at his chest.

Drace can't help a little laugh; she might go mad if she doesn't find something humorous about this. "I hope you didn't think I bind mine for aesthetics' sake," she says.

"I -- I confess it hadn't occurred to me that they would be a burden," Gabranth admits.

"If you like," Drace offers, "I can loan you my binding wrap, while this holds. I don't imagine I'll miss it."

Gabranth nods stiffly. "Thank you," he says. "I -- would appreciate that."

Their immediate surroundings are clear of potentially aggressive wildlife, and the fire should deter most types from coming to trouble them further -- there's nothing around here, so far as Drace knows, with an affinity toward fire. Still, it's an odd position to be in, unbuckling her breastplate, her collar and pauldrons, her gauntlets, setting each piece aside. She's grown perhaps too reliant on her armor; magisters no longer have to train regularly in under-equipped warfare.

She tugs loose the laces of her shirt and opens it, realizing that her binding is still wound taut around her rib cage -- that, too, has broadened along with her shoulders. She pulls the binding free, and manages -- only through an acute awareness of how ridiculous it would look -- not to look down her own shirt curiously. "You know," she says, handing off the binding linen to Gabranth, "I've not been so flat-chested since I was twelve."

"I suspect most of Archades would be surprised to hear that it bothers you," Gabranth says. _His_ shirt is conspicuously ill-fitted, too tight across the chest, fine leather straining.

"You among them?" Drace asks. She reminds herself to look up, to meet his eyes.

He seems unsettled by the question. "I would -- be sorry, selfishly, to see you remain as you are. I would miss...what we have shared."

Drace tries not to watch him as he unlaces his shirt; it's nothing she hasn't seen, after all, even if she has never seen him like this. "You would no longer bed me, if I remained a man?"

"You can't be serious," Gabranth says. "Would you still lie with me, if I were the one who -- who didn't recover?"

"I've lain with women before," Drace replies, and Gabranth flinches, perhaps in surprise that she would admit it, perhaps in discomfort that she would so bluntly name the nature of his misfortune. Whichever the case, he turns his back as he lifts his shirt off over his head.

The planes in his back and shoulders are almost familiar, almost the shapes that Drace recognizes, though the muscle lies differently under the skin now. The change is just enough to make him seem new and strange again, to make her really notice how his shoulderblades slide as he moves, how his spine curves --  
Drace's cock stirs in the confines of her trousers, and her breath catches in her throat. It should take more than that, shouldn't it? Yet it seems not to; she can feel her cock beginning to swell and thicken just from this, watching the way Gabranth moves as he learns to bind down his breasts.

He would not thank her for this, she reminds herself. If he cares not for the idea of lying with her when she is a man, then she does neither of them any kindness by staring. There must be something more productive she could be doing -- like cleaning the fish, and _not_ letting herself wonder what it would be like, how it would feel to take someone and feel the clutch of soft flesh around her cock.

The work helps; it's messy and unpleasant, and by the time she has cleaned the first of the fish, Gabranth has finished binding and pulled his shirt back on.

"Here," he says, "let me take that."

"Gladly," Drace says, offering him the cleaned fish. "It's hungry work, traveling overland. The sooner we eat, the better."

Gabranth smiles almost normally. "You Archadians are so decadent, ferrying your troops everywhere by airship."

"It's the luxury of being a great imperial power," Drace says, as she takes her knife to the second fish.

"Luxury?" Gabranth repeats. "Is that what this is?"

Drace does her best to keep her expression serious. "The empire's finest, and don't forget it." Tension she'd only half acknowledged uncoils in her shoulders; for all that this has unbalanced them, still they recognize each other, and that is enough.

Cooked, the fish is firm and white, flaking in their fingers as they pull the meat away from skin and bones. It's impossible to eat decorously, cross-legged before the fire with no proper utensils, and Drace is the first to give up the effort. A good meal, her mother always said, is only improved by enthusiasm, and Gabranth knows her too well for her to worry about playing the proper lady for him -- especially now.

He follows her lead with only a moment's hesitation, devouring their dinner ravenously, for all his boasting about the hardiness of his people. If he might wish, as she does, for more seasoning or a flagon of ale to accompany the meal, he is not so ungrateful as to say so.

When they've eaten, they walk down to the near shore, and take turns standing watch so the other can scrub hands and face clean with water and sand. The last of the daylight is fading over the sea when they return to their campsite.

Gabranth adds more wood to the fire, stirring it back to life. "In the morning," he says, "perhaps we will find ourselves recovered."

"We can hope," Drace replies, though she suspects that he is hoping more fervently than she.

The soil here is sandy, far from the most comfortable bed Drace has ever had, but with their capes spread over the patchy grass it's not the worst, either. Their armor is set aside, and their weapons set closer, in easy reach should anything overtake them in the night. This early, the air is fairly warm yet, though it likely will grow colder as the night wears on.

Beside her -- nearer the fire, further from the cliff wall -- Gabranth seems to be having trouble getting comfortable. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the sky as the first stars come out. "What if it's -- what if we can't turn back?" he asks quietly.

There is only so much coddling this deserves, Drace thinks. "Then you would manage as well as any man who's suffered a crippling injury in battle. Perhaps better."

He flinches. "I don't mean to imply that it's -- _is_ it so crippling?"

Drace answers slowly, trying to make her thoughts clear. "No. Not crippling, but rather -- exhausting, more than anything. Especially if you, like me, are more drawn to the airship hangar and the battlefield than to the market and the theater. There will be men who expect you to be weak, and if you are not, it will anger them, so that they try to sabotage you and make you suit their ideas."

"Not all men," Gabranth says, perhaps a touch defensively.

"No," Drace agrees. "Not all men." She reaches out, hesitantly, and rests her hand on the flat of his stomach, below his rib cage. "And I am grateful for that." He holds completely still, barely even breathing, and after a moment she begins to withdraw. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sure you'd prefer I leave you be, like this."

He catches her hand. "However strange the situation," he says, "you are -- still Drace. I find that I've grown used to you being the exception to all the rules."

"An Archadian compliment if I ever heard one," Drace murmurs. When Gabranth doesn't let go, she rolls over, closer, so their bodies nearly touch. She feels far too conscious of his physical presence. He was patient with her when she was uncertain, early on, whether she dared risk a physical relationship at all; she owes him the same courtesy now, while he decides how much of an exception, ultimately, he can make for her.

"If this is too strange," he says.

"Then we stop," she agrees.

He turns, toward her, and this is both the hundredth and the first time that they have kissed, the same directness and honesty in it even when his lips are softer, fuller than she expects. She tries not to treat it as anything different, not to be more cautious with him than usual -- he is no more delicate than she is, and she doubts he would want to be treated that way.

"It feels strange," he says when he pulls back from the kiss. He reaches up to lay a hand against her cheek. "You have stubble coming in."

Drace laughs weakly. "Too strange?" She's growing hard again, her body's response immediate and focused.

Gabranth takes a deep breath. "I don't think so." He kisses her again, and this time she wraps an arm around his waist -- narrow, it seems, compared with the new swell of his hips -- and pulls him closer. He makes a surprised noise into her mouth, and her cock jumps. He must be able to feel it, because he hesitates for a moment, but he doesn't pull away. Instead he pushes closer, and perhaps it's bravado, but Drace can't bring herself to care, not now, with the wet heat of his tongue in her mouth and the soft crush of his breasts against her chest.

If he cared to, he would stop her, Drace tells herself. She reaches for the laces of his shirt.

"You play your part well," he says, but he sounds more amused than alarmed.

"And you?" Drace asks. Her hand slides into his shirt, finds the skin beneath hairless and smooth. "Will you be a well-bred, demure maiden of the empire, or are you hard and unwomanly enough to be a magister?"

Gabranth laughs, the sound harsh and breathless and beautiful. "You know the answer to that."

"I do," Drace agrees, and claims another kiss. She finds her hips rocking, realizes she's rubbing her cock against his thigh without even meaning to move. It's too fast, too demanding, too insistent when she meant to be considerate and restrained. She makes herself pull back, her hand resting flat against his rib cage, her fingertips against the lower edge of his binding. "May I see?"

"We've come this far," Gabranth says, which is nearly agreement. Drace makes herself wait, though, until he nods once.

She tugs the binding linen untucked, and he arches his back to make it easier for her to pull it away. His breasts are small and firm, the nipples dark. The cool air, or possibly her attention, makes them harden. Drace lowers her head.

Gabranth moans when her mouth closes around one of his nipples, when she catches it carefully between her teeth. "Gods," he says. One of his hands curls around her bicep; the other tangles in her hair, not pulling her back, just holding on. She reaches up to tease his other nipple between her fingers. "Gods, Drace."

She moans back, not ready to stop this yet, licking and stroking until Gabranth is shuddering under her, rocking his hips, his breath coming in raw gasps.

"I want," he says, "I want to, it -- I don't know _what_ I want, what to --"

Drace reaches for the buttons of his trousers. "Let me," she starts, and then amends that to, "Is this all right?"

"Stop treating me like I'm breakable," Gabranth answers. "When it's not all right, you'll know."

Drace smiles, ducking her head. She's fairly certain she said something much the same to him six months ago. "My apologies, your honor. Let me help you." She unbuttons his trousers and pulls them down, over the swell of his hips, past his thighs, until he can kick them the rest of the way off. Looking at him makes her feel dizzy -- there's so much that's different, breasts and hips and thighs, the curls of dark hair between his legs, and yet he's still Gabranth, also, lean and strong, with the old scar along his side and the proud determination on his face. Drace's cock aches.

She slides up to lie beside him, and takes his hand in hers. "Now," she says. "Touch."

Their hands together slide down over his stomach, past the crest of his pubic bone, between his thighs. She feels his fingertips part the lips of his cunt, and then he goes still, his breath ragged. "Oh gods," he whispers. "Gods."

Drace wants to speak, but she's not sure she dares. Either she'll be too solicitous, or else too demanding. She laces her fingers with his, instead, and shows him how to slick them with his own fluids, how little motion he really needs to stroke his clit. Gabranth shivers, a moan catching in his throat.

"Please," Drace whispers, "gods, yes," and then buries her face in the hollow of his throat so she won't say more. Even his skin tastes different, more like leather and less like steel, as she sucks on the pulse beating fast in his throat.

"There," he says, "there," his hand moving fast, his body drawing taut against her, and it's not long after that before he shivers, back arching, half swallowing the cry that rises from his throat. "It," he says, breathless, "that -- I want more, there -- it's not enough."

"Then don't stop," Drace says. Her voice comes out hoarse. She slides her hand down further, and finds him even wetter than before, slippery and hot and yielding as she presses two fingers slowly into his cunt.

"Fuck," he says, barely more than a breath, and she can feel him tense for a second before he closes his eyes and rocks down onto her hand. "That makes it -- better?"

Drace is trying to imagine how it would feel to sink her cock into this wet, muscular heat, how that grip would feel. "More intense," she says. "More pressure. Here." She crooks her fingers, stroking the rough-textured spot she can barely reach, and Gabranth moans. He starts to stroke himself again, fast and hard, muscle flexing in his forearm. Drace bites her tongue.

It hits him much harder like this, his whole body trembling, contracting around her fingers as he comes. The strength in it is breathtaking.

"Please," Drace says, fumbling for her trouser buttons with her other hand, still half trapped under her. "It _hurts_, I want -- I want you so much."

"That's an ache that's never killed anyone," Gabranth says, "or so I've been told." But he reaches for the buttons of her trousers all the same, and her fingers slip free of him.

"None of you hardy barbarian stock, maybe," Drace counters, shivering at each accidental touch of his fingers. "But we decadent Archadians could easily die of -- oh gods," his hand curls around her cock, holding all of her need, just like that. She thrusts into his hand, the friction so welcome, so good. "Say this is all right," she pleads, sliding a knee between his thighs, shifting her weight over him. "Tell me you --"

He braces a hand against her hip, her shoulder. "Not like this," he says, and she swallows the immediate desire to argue with an effort. "I am no Archadian maiden," he clarifies, tangling his legs with hers and rolling them both over.

There's a second when Drace panics, before she realizes just how different it is for him to pin her now. "No," she says, "far from it." She slides her hands up his thighs. "Like this, then?"

Gabranth swallows hard. "Only because it's you." He straddles her hips, and she says nothing about the way he's trembling, and then she can feel the slick soft folds of his cunt against the head of her cock and she can't say anything at all, even to beg him to move.

He steadies her with one hand, closes his eyes, and pushes down in one fast motion like he might lose his nerve otherwise. He hisses, and Drace moans, her hands tightening on his thighs. It feels even better than she'd imagined it would, lush and welcoming, and she both wants to thrust hard and to hold very still so she won't disrupt the balance of this moment.

"Gods, that feels strange," Gabranth whispers. His voice is unsteady. "So -- so full." He leans forward slightly, clutching at her shoulders. Even just that little motion is enough to make Drace shiver, to make her want to push up against him and get _more_.

Her body moves before she's sure he's ready -- for all that she meant to go slowly, and be good to him, she can't seem to stop herself. "I'm sorry," she says, when something flickers across his face that might be pain. "I can't -- you just --"

He laughs breathlessly. "I know," he says. One of his hands strays down, between his legs. "Could I, again?"

"Maybe," Drace says. "Try." If he wants to come again, he can't be too uncomfortable, and that means she doesn't need to hold back, doesn't need to worry so much.

She thrusts upward, feeling how she slides inside him, her breath stuttering as he starts to stroke himself again. She won't last, can't last, with the slick heat of his cunt around her and the soft hungry noises he makes as she thrusts, the sight of him rocking on top of her as he reaches for his own pleasure. The firelight makes his skin glow, draws the contours of his body into sharp relief, highlights the full curves of his breasts. Drace reaches up to cup them in her hands, her thumbs brushing the peaks of his nipples, making him moan louder -- she needs so little more to ease the tension gathering at the base of her cock, she wants to try to focus on him while she can, try to bring him closer, try to bring him to his --

Her climax overtakes her before she can manage it, all the need and heat and tension tightening down to a single point and then bursting, shattering, pulsing through her in one brilliant, overpowering moment.

"Don't stop moving," Gabranth says, breathy and trembling, still rocking on top of her. "It's -- right there, please --"

Drace nods. "Won't stop," she promises, even though she feels too sensitive now, nerves almost raw as Gabranth moves. She catches his nipples between her fingers and pulls, twists, until he hisses a little curse that's no complaint at all. His hand moves frantically over his clit, his thighs tense and trembling, his mouth open on desperate, half-voiced moans. He looks gorgeous, giving himself up to pleasure like this, hungry for it, and the anticipation has Drace tense, too, as he draws closer and closer and then finally comes, sobbing with pleasure, bowed over her lap and his cunt clenching around her cock.

"Gods," he whispers. "Gods." He slumps forward, catching himself on his hands, looking down at her. "That --" He shakes his head. "Of all the ways I never thought I'd spend this evening...."

Drace laughs. "Nor I," she says. "And yet I feel we've done better than we might have, given the handicaps we faced."

Gabranth smiles back. "That we have," he agrees. He shifts his weight slightly, and winces. "I think perhaps I've had as much of this as I can stand, for now."

"Of course." Drace wraps her hands around his hips, steadying him as he lifts himself free of her cock.

"I feel a mess," he says, lowering himself gingerly down beside her.

"I'm not surprised," she replies, smiling. She searches through the pockets of her trousers until she comes up with a handkerchief. "Here. This should help."

"Prepared for everything, aren't you?" he asks as he takes it from her.

"We Archadians may be decadent," Drace says, "but we do know how to outfit a fighting force." She turns away to give him some privacy while he cleans himself up, moving instead to add more wood to the fire. The coals glow bright, and the flames curl around the new driftwood hungrily.

"Drace," Gabranth says. She turns back; he has mostly dressed himself again, though his shirt is only half laced. "I -- thank you."

She'd been expecting him to ask for something -- a promise of secrecy, perhaps, or reassurance that this will pass. "You're welcome," she says. "And thank you, also."

She stretches out beside him, pillowing her head on her arm. After a moment he drapes an arm over her waist. "Good night," he says.

"Sleep well," Drace replies.

She must fall asleep quickly after that, because the next thing she's aware of is waking, the fire dying and the moon high in the sky above them. Gabranth is still asleep beside her, his chest rising and falling slowly. Neither of them has changed back.

Drace sits up, and stirs the fire, feeding it again. Perhaps this will be permanent, after all. Gabranth will be miserable, and she can't blame him -- for all her assurances earlier, she wouldn't be surprised to find that it _would_ be crippling to try to return to Archadia after suffering something like this. For him, at least; most of Archadia's powerful would be happy to dismiss him, with not one but two flaws to hold against him. As for her....

She tries to imagine what it would feel like to be only _a judge_ rather than _the woman judge_. What a difference it would make in the way the regular soldiers took her orders. How it would change the arguments she had with the others. Whether it would make the men of House Solidor more willing to give her assignments with real importance attached to them.

The fact that she's even considering these things makes her abruptly sick with anger. It shouldn't _matter_ what she has between her legs. She's succeeded this long as the gods made her, and no matter that it would make things easier, it's not what she wants.

What she wants, though, is for Archadia to not care what she has beneath her armor, and she might as well wish to be the Dynast-King. She picks at a tuft of grass, shredding the blades absently. Perhaps if they don't recover, she'll propose to Gabranth that they flee the empire -- take a new set of names, become mercenaries or sky pirates.

The idea is ridiculous, of course. But it helps her calm down, gives her something else to think about as she lies down and tries to get back to sleep.

The next time she wakes, it's to the cool light of dawn, and Gabranth pressing up against her back. "Good morning," he says, nuzzling at her neck. His voice is low and rough with sleep, and his stubble prickles against her skin.

For one bitter moment, Drace is so consumed with regret she can taste it.

"Feeling better?" she says, as lightly as she can. She rolls over to meet his eyes.

He smiles. "Well enough to hike down the coast and get ourselves some breakfast at the hunters' camp," he says, "if it's possible for a decadent imperial to march on an empty stomach."

"This decadent imperial," she says, and finds it not so difficult after all to return his smile, "can keep up with an undisciplined barbarian like you any day."


End file.
